During my time at BTN.com, I’ve done countless football and men’s basketball power rankings. But I’ve never combined the two as a way to rank the Big Ten’s football-basketball programs. Until now, that is. What criteria did I consider while ranking the Big Ten schools, you ask? I took into account how the schools fared in football and basketball during the 2011-12 season, how they will fare in 2012-13, all while putting an equal value on football and basketball success or failure.

Big Ten media days kick off on Thursday in Chicago. Myriad queries will be asked by the Fourth Estate, but not all of them will be posed or answered. Me? I have a long list of questions—101, to be exact–as we sit on the precipice of the 2012 season. See all 101 of my questions in this post. Have any other ones you want me to ask a player or coach? Send it to me in the comment section at the bottom of this post or tweet it to @BTNTomDienhart.

We inch closer to another season of Big Ten football every day, and with 2012 conference games comes a fresh season of “The Journey.” If you love watching our award-winning show for moments like the videos in this post, then you’ll love “The Journey: Big Ten Football 2012.” It debuts Oct. 3, but you can follow our Journey crew every step of the way on Twitter and our recently launched Facebook and Instagram (BTNJourney) pages. On Twitter, we’ll be using the Twitter hashtag #BTNJourney both during the shows and all the days in between.

Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema has long been a proponent of playing Big Ten games during the season’s first four weeks, and he’ll get his wish in 2013. Wisconsin announced Wednesday in a press release that it will host Purdue on Sept. 21, 2013 – also known as Week 4 – one week before the Big Ten typically starts conference play.

Big Ten media days kick off Thursday in Chicago, so I thought I’d release my preseason Big Ten player rankings. I’m going to do these a little different this year. In previous years, I’d rank the top 10 players, which often became a tough task with all the talent on both sides of the ball. To account for both sides, I’ll rank the top six offensive and defensive players each week.

The Big Ten Conference and member schools released their official lists of all Big Ten names past and present competing in the upcoming 2012 London Summer Olympics, which open this Friday. The list includes the handful of Big Ten athletes contributing Olympic journals to BTN.com, featuring an entertaining band of Big Ten swimmers. Find the official list by school in this post and click on the linked names to find the latest journals from those athletes.